Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Bar-headed geese (Anser in­di­cus) have a breed­ing range that stretches from Mon­go­lia south through Rus­sia and West­ern China to Tibet and as far west as Kyr­gyzs­tan. Ap­prox­i­mately 25% of the global pop­u­la­tion of bar-headed geese win­ter on the south­ern Ti­betan-Qing­hai Plateau. An­other win­ter­ing area for a por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion is India and Bangladesh. (Guo-Gang, et al., 2011; Takekawa, et al., 2009)

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native
• oriental
  • native

Habi­tat

Bar-headed geese can be found at high el­e­va­tions. They use habi­tats like moun­tain grass­lands and crop fields from sur­round­ing vil­lages. Bar-headed geese tend to use fresh­wa­ter marshes, lakes, and streams that are around el­e­va­tions of 4,000 to 6,000 me­ters above sea level as stop-over and over-win­ter­ing sites. Some geese have even been re­ported to mi­grate at al­ti­tudes of 9,000 me­ters when they cross the Hi­malaya Moun­tains. (Guo-Gang, et al., 2011; Mid­dle­ton, 1992; Scott, et al., 2009; Takekawa, et al., 2009)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• terrestrial
• freshwater

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams
• brackish water

• Wetlands
• marsh

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural

• Range elevation

  Sea Level to 6,000 m

  to ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Bar-headed geese have grey bod­ies, with or­ange legs and a black and white neck. This species is named for the ob­vi­ous black U-shaped bars on the back of the white head. They weigh be­tween 2 and 3 kg (4.5 and 6.5 lbs) with a wingspan be­tween 140 and 160 cm (55 and 62 inch), and are be­tween 68 and 78 cm (27 and 30 inch) in length. Bar-headed geese have a basal meta­bolic rate of 756 cubic cen­time­ters of oxy­gen per hour. (Tam­melin, 2012; Ward, et al., 2002)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Range mass

  2.0 to 3.0 kg

  4.41 to 6.61 lb

• Range length

  68 to 78 cm

  26.77 to 30.71 in

• Range wingspan

  140 to 160 cm

  55.12 to 62.99 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  756 cm3.O2/g/hr

Re­pro­duc­tion

Bar-headed geese are sea­sonal breed­ers. They ex­hibit a monog­a­mous mat­ing sys­tem, where males pair with one sin­gle fe­male for sev­eral years. Dur­ing times when the pop­u­la­tion is bi­ased to­wards fe­males a polyg­y­nous sys­tem is adopted where a monog­a­mous pair may be joined by mul­ti­ple sec­ondary fe­males. These sec­ondary fe­males also breed with the male of the pair. Be­cause they breed in large colonies, fe­males de­fend their nests from so­cially lower fe­males that may be using brood par­a­sitism to in­crease the likely hood of their off­spring's sur­vival. (Lam­precht, 1987)

• Mating System
• monogamous
• polygynous

Bar-headed geese typ­i­cally breed on an an­nual basis. This oc­curs dur­ing the spring. Nest­ing oc­curs from the last week of April until June. They typ­i­cally lay 3 to 8 eggs on av­er­age. After 28 to 30 days the goslings hatch. There was lit­tle in­for­ma­tion on the birth mass of the goslings. They then fledge by 55 to 60 days, and reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity at 3 years of age. Bar-headed geese tend to breed on the Ti­betan-Qing­hai Plateau. They lay their eggs in ground nests at high el­e­va­tions in the high­land marshes and lakes. (Prins and van Wieren, 2004; Takekawa, et al., 2009)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Bar-headed geese breed annually (once yearly).

• Breeding season

  Bar-headed geese breed in the last week of April through July.

• Range eggs per season

  3 to 8

• Range time to hatching

  28 to 30 days

• Range fledging age

  55 to 60 days

• Range time to independence

  55 to 60 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 years

Bar-headed geese use bi­parental care when rais­ing young. Stud­ies show that male bar-headed geese are more alert and de­fen­sive when in the pres­ence of their goslings. These same stud­ies show that the goslings have the added ben­e­fit of an in­creased sur­vival rate from hav­ing both par­ents. Both par­ents pro­vide their goslings with pro­tec­tion from preda­tors and other geese. In ad­di­tion to that the par­ents also pro­tect the goslings' food. (Friedl, 1993; Schnei­der and Lam­precht, 1990)

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• male parental care
• female parental care

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lit­tle in­for­ma­tion is pub­lished on the lifes­pan of bar-headed geese. Like most geese they are long-lived. A close rel­a­tive, grey­lag geese, have a lifes­pan of 20 years in the wild and the old­est one in cap­tiv­ity lived 31 years. (de Ma­g­a­l­haes and Costa, 2009; de Ma­g­a­l­haes and Costa, 2009)

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  20 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  20 years

Be­hav­ior

This species is typ­i­cal to most in the order Anser­i­formes in that they are a so­cial species mi­grat­ing in fam­ily groups or large colonies. They are very motile mi­grat­ing twice a year over the Hi­malaya Moun­tains to and from their breed­ing grounds on the Ti­betan-Qing­hai Plateau. They mi­grate in "V"-for­ma­tions or vari­a­tions of it. They have a so­cial hi­er­ar­chy con­sist­ing of mated male-fe­male pairs being the high­est, fol­lowed by sec­ondary fe­males that are usu­ally part of a harem, and low­est so­cially is lone fe­males. This harem usu­ally forms when the pop­u­la­tion is bi­ased to­wards fe­males. Bar-headed geese make ground nests with shal­low de­pres­sions at high el­e­va­tions. They de­fend these nests from preda­tors and from other so­cially lower fe­males. ("Bar-headed geese - the as­tro­nauts among mi­gra­tory birds", 2011; Prins and van Wieren, 2004; Scott, et al., 2009; Speak­man and Banks, 1998)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• motile
• migratory
• territorial
• colonial
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

Their Breed­ing range is in West­ern China, Mon­go­lia, and on the Ti­betan-Qing­hai Plateau. Their non-breed­ing range is in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. (Prins and van Wieren, 2004; Schnei­der and Lam­precht, 1990; Scott, et al., 2009; Ward, et al., 2002)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Like most geese, bar-headed geese fly in "V"-shaped for­ma­tions. When the lead bird gets tired they fall to the back of the for­ma­tion and an­other goose takes the lead. The for­ma­tion can vary from a tra­di­tional V to other shapes like "J"-shape and the echeleon shape where one arm of the "V"-shape is miss­ing. The ben­e­fit of this style of flight is that each in­di­vid­ual flies with re­duced drag, which in turn saves them en­ergy. They use vocal com­mu­ni­ca­tions and vi­sual cues to main­tain their spac­ing while fly­ing in these for­ma­tions. This also as­sists them in stay­ing in closely re­lated fam­ily groups as they move from tra­di­tional feed­ing and breed­ing areas. Like other wa­ter­fowl they can also see in the ul­tra­vi­o­let spec­trum of light. (Speak­man and Banks, 1998)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• ultraviolet
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical
• magnetic

Food Habits

Bar-headed geese gen­er­ally feed on the high­land grasses sur­round­ing their lakes and streams where they nest. Dur­ing other times of the year they can be found eat­ing on agri­cul­tural crops such as corn, wheat, bar­ley, and rice. (Akbar, et al., 2005)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore
  • granivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• insects

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• roots and tubers
• seeds, grains, and nuts

Pre­da­tion

From the air the bar-headed geese are prey for sea ea­gles, golden ea­gles, crows, and ravens. On the ground the geese are preyed upon by red foxes. Some of the adap­ta­tions the geese have de­vel­oped is the abil­ity to sur­vive at high al­ti­tudes. This lim­its the amount of ground preda­tors that can reach them. They can sur­vive at high al­ti­tudes be­cause they have a higher den­sity of cap­il­lar­ies that are spaced closer to­gether this al­lows them to de­liver more oxy­gen to their mus­cles, in par­tic­u­lar their flight mus­cles. In ad­di­tion to their cap­il­lar­ies they also have he­mo­glo­bin in their blood that is more ef­fi­cient at tak­ing in oxy­gen. An­other adap­ta­tion is that these geese tend to live in large colonies or smaller fam­ily groups which en­hances preda­tor de­tec­tion. (Prins and van Wieren, 2004; Scott, et al., 2009)

• Known Predators

  • red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
  • crows (Corvus americanus)
  • ravens (Corvus corax)
  • sea eagles (Haliaeetus species)
  • golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos)

Ecosys­tem Roles

These geese are prey for an­i­mals such as red foxes, and golden ea­gles. Some can also be par­a­sites by using higher ranked fe­males as hosts to raise their off­spring. In ad­di­tion they are also car­ri­ers of the H5N1 virus and ca­pa­ble of pass­ing the virus to hu­mans, and other an­i­mals as well. They as­sist in the dis­per­sal of grass seeds they eat through­out the year. (Cui, et al., 2011; Prins and van Wieren, 2004; Weigmann and Lam­precht, 1991)

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

These geese ben­e­fit hu­mans be­cause of eco­tourism to the wildlife areas that they use as re­fu­el­ing stops dur­ing their mi­gra­tions. "The East Cal­cutta Wet­lands in West­ern Ben­gal (a stop over site for mi­grat­ing Bar-headed Geese) has en­vi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits worth 38.54 mil­lion dol­lars"(Bhat­tacharyya et al., 2008). (Bhat­tacharyya, et al., 2008)

• Positive Impacts
• ecotourism

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Bar-headed geese were one of the first species to show signs of the H5N1 (Bird Flu) virus. In ad­di­tion to car­ry­ing the virus the geese are also pests to the local vil­lagers. Since they feed on the wheat, rice, and other crops around their roost­ing areas, they can cause dam­age to farm fields. (Cui, et al., 2011)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • carries human disease
• crop pest

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Bar-headed geese are listed on the IUCN Red List as Least Con­cerned. They have no spe­cial sta­tus under the US Mi­gra­tory Bird Act or on the US Fed­eral List be­cause there is no pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in the US. Nor are they pro­tected under the US En­dan­gered Species Act. CITES con­tains no spe­cial sta­tus for the species ei­ther. (Butchart and Symes, 2012)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Migratory Bird Act

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Do­minick Cucinello (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Christo­pher Yahnke (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Laura Podzikowski (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

2011. "Bar-headed geese - the as­tro­nauts among mi­gra­tory birds" (On-line). Goose.​org. Ac­cessed Au­gust 08, 2012 at http://​www.​goose.​org/​englisch/​bar-headed-goose.​html.

Akbar, M., R. Khan, S. Mehboob, Z. Nisa. 2005. Wildlife of Bor­der Belt Game Re­serve Dis­trict Narowal, Pun­jab, Pak­istan. Pak. j. life soc. sci., 3(1-2): 13-17.

Bhat­tacharyya, A., S. Sen, P. Roy, A. Mazum­dar. 2008. A Crit­i­cal Study on Sta­tus of East Kolkata Wet­lands with Spe­cial Em­pha­sis on Water Birds as Bio-In­di­ca­tor. Pro­ceed­ings of Taal2007: The 12th World Lake Con­fer­ence, 12: 1561-1570.

Butchart, S., A. Symes. 2012. "Anser in­di­cus" (On-line). The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species. Ac­cessed Au­gust 06, 2012 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​full/​100600379/​0.

Cui, P., Y. Hou, a. et.. 2011. Bird Mi­gra­tion and Risk for H5N1 Transs­mis­sion into Qing­hai Lake, China. Vec­tor Bome Zoonotic Dis., 11(5): 567-576. Ac­cessed Au­gust 09, 2012 at http://​www.​ncbi.​nlm.​nih.​gov/​pmc/​articles/​PMC3096498/?​tool=pmcentrez.

Friedl, T. 1993. In­tr­a­clutch Egg-Mass Vari­a­tion in Geese: Mech­a­nism for Brood Re­duc­tion in Pre­co­cial Birds. The Auk, 110(1): 129-132. Ac­cessed Au­gust 09, 2012 at http://​library.​unm.​edu/​sora/​Auk/​v110n01/​p0129-p0132.​pdf.

Guo-Gang, Z., L. Dong-Ping, H. Yun-Qiu, J. Hong-Xing, D. Ming, Q. Fa-Wen, L. Jun, X. Zhi, L. Feng-Shan. 2011. Mi­gra­tion Routes and Stop-Over Sites De­ter­mined with Satel­lite Track­ing of Bar-Headed Geese Anser in­di­cus Breed­ing at Qing­hai Lake, China. Wa­ter­birds, 34(1): 112-116. Ac­cessed Au­gust 05, 2012 at http://​www.​bioone.​org/​doi/​full/​10.​1675/​063.​034.​0115.

Lam­precht, J. 1987. Fe­male Re­pro­duc­tive Strate­gies in Bar-headed Geese (Anser in­di­cus): Why Are Geese Monog­a­mous?. Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy and So­cial­bi­ol­ogy, 21(5): 297-305. Ac­cessed Au­gust 06, 2012 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​stable/​4600095.

Mid­dle­ton, B. 1992. Habi­tat and Food Pref­er­ences of Grey­lag and Bar­headed Geese Win­ter­ing in the Ke­o­ladeo Na­tional Park, India. Jour­nal of Trop­i­cal Ecol­ogy, 8 No.2: 181-193. Ac­cessed Au­gust 05, 2012 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​stable/​2559700.

Prins, H., S. van Wieren. 2004. Num­ber, pop­u­la­tion struc­ture and habi­tat use of bar-headed geese Aniser in­di­cus in Ladakh (India) dur­ing the brood-rear­ing pe­riod. Acta Zo­o­log­ica Sinica, 50(5): 738-744.

Schnei­der, J., J. Lam­precht. 1990. The im­por­tance of bi­parental care in a pre­coial, monog­a­mous bird, the bar-headed goose (Aniser in­di­cus). Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy and So­cial­bi­ol­ogy, 27: 415-419. Ac­cessed Au­gust 07, 2012 at http://​www.​jstor.​org.​ezproxy.​uwsp.​edu/​stable/​pdfplus/​4600500.​pdf.

Scott, G., S. Eggin­ton, J. Richards, W. Mil­som. 2009. Evo­lu­tion of mus­cle phe­no­type for ex­treme high al­ti­tude flight in the bar-headed goose. Proc Biol Sci, 276(1673): 3645-3653.

Speak­man, J., D. Banks. 1998. The func­tion of flight for­ma­tions in Grey­lag Geese Anser anser; en­ergy sav­ing or ori­en­ta­tion?. Ibis, 140: 280-287.

Takekawa, J., S. Heath, D. Dou­glas, W. Perry, Javed Salim, S. New­man. 2009. Ge­o­graphic vari­a­tion in Bar-headed Geese Anser in­di­cus: con­nec­tiv­ity of win­ter­ing areas and breed­ing grounds across a broad front. Wild­fowl, 59: 100-123. Ac­cessed Au­gust 05, 2012 at https://​www.​wwt.​org.​uk/​userfiles/​files/​11_​Takekawa_​pp100_​123.​pdf.

Tam­melin, H. 2012. "Bar-headed Goose" (On-line). Na­ture­Gate. Ac­cessed Au­gust 09, 2012 at http://​www.​luontoportti.​com/​suomi/​en/​tekijat/​.

Ward, S., C. Bishop, A. Woakes, P. But­ler. 2002. Heart rate and the rate of oxy­gen con­sump­tion of fly­ing and walk­ing bar­na­cle geese (Branta leu­cop­sis) and bar-headed geese (Anser in­di­cus). The Jour­nal of Ex­per­i­men­tal Bi­ol­ogy, 205: 3347–3356.

Weigmann, C., J. Lam­precht. 1991. In­traspe­cific nest par­a­sitism in bar-headed geese, Anser in­di­cus. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 41: 677-688.

de Ma­g­a­l­haes, J., J. Costa. 2009. A data­base of ver­te­brate longevity records and their re­la­tion to other life-his­tory traits.. Jour­nal of Evo­lu­tion­ary Bi­ol­ogy, 22(8): 1770-1774.